An illustrated guide to constructing a Viking ship

Viking raids spread Scandinavian culture far beyond northern Europe

Between roughly 800 and 1200 CE, seafaring Vikings from Scandinavia combined skilled craftsmanship with violent coastal raids. Their expeditions extended cultural influence from the British Isles to Northern Africa, reshaping medieval trade, warfare, and settlement patterns.

View an interactive collection of historical documents from the Viking project

This collection includes original mission bulletins, engineering and planning documents, and interview segments from more than 80 Viking team members who made the historic exploration of Mars’ surface by a lander possible.

Visualizing Byzantium in the year 1200

This is a computer reconstruction of the Byzantine capital at its apogee, just before the Fourth Crusade. Alongside detailed renderings of the Hippodrome and Hagia Sophia, it includes dozens of the imperial city’s less famous monuments, many of which can still be found in modern Istanbul. The reconstruction is a work in progress, and the Byzantium 1200 X account routinely posts updates.

An illustrated guide to the ancient Greek version of the Olympics

Go back to the original time and place of the athletic contest with this illustrated guide to the Games. For 1,200 years, the ancient Greeks would gather every four years for the Games in Elis, months after heralds had spread the word of the event to the region's many peninsulas, with its greatest athletes competing for honor.

Medieval sword manuals survive—but their techniques are hard to decode

While some knights guarded their combat knowledge, others recorded it in illustrated fighting manuals. Centuries later, scholars struggle to interpret these cryptic texts, revealing how much medieval martial knowledge was lost or obscured over time.

The man who created Settlers of Catan was inspired by Viking tales about the journey to Iceland.

Klaus Teuber invented the game when he was in his 30s, and had his wife and children act as early test players. Published in 1995, the game has now sold over 45 million units.

An archive of some of America's most significant shipwrecks

From The Portland—known as New England's "Titanic"—to the Civil War's USS Monitor, this archive from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration provides overviews of some of the most well-known shipwrecks in US history.

A pottery jar from the Naqada II period is the oldest depiction of a sailboat

The Egyptian artifact, made by the Gerzeh culture from 3650 BCE to 3300 BCE, provides the earliest evidence of humans harnessing wind power in a technological capacity.

Stanford built a Google Maps for the Roman Empire, revealing how much it cost to travel in the ancient world

See how Stonehenge was built

This short animation shows how human beings managed to lug 30-ton stones over miles of prehistoric English countryside and stand them up The Stone Age engineering involved using giant wooden rollers and carving precisely interlocking tongue-and-groove joints to hold the heavy stones in place.

Exploring the link between history, art, and anatomy

Throughout centuries, art has played a vital role in sharing—and furthering—scientific understanding. This largely began in 1543 when physician Andreas Vesalius worked with an artist and engraver to transform learnings from his dissections into...

The Elizabethan pirate hired to find the Northwest Passage

This resource by the Canadian Museum of Natural History explores the life and adventures of Martin Frobisher, an Elizabethan pirate hired to find the then-fabled Northwest Passage, a path across the Arctic Sea that would've allowed for quicker trade between Asia and Eastern Europe. He ventured into arctic waters at least three times, returning to England each time with either fool's gold, captive natives, or fool's gold and captive natives.

The mystery of Sandby Borg: an Iron Age massacre

Sandby Borg, Sweden, was the site of a 5th-century slaughter where victims were left to rot where they fell. This article details how scientists are working to solve the prehistoric murder mystery and find out what happened to the Sandby Borg...

How Bauhaus resonated in Norway

The Bauhaus style may have originated in Germany, but it had a major impact in Norway. This history unpacks the work of Marianne Brandt, Thorbjørn Lie-Jørgensen, Ola Mørk Sandvik, Hans Mollø-Christensen, and other Norwegian designers and architects

Dive into the history of beer via comic book

Why was the covered beer stein invented, and what led to the creation of the Vienna Lager beer style? Find out in this article about a 173-page comic book outlining the history of beer. According to creator Mike Smith, the history of beer is a...

Some people smash Champagne bottles on ships for good luck

Long before Champagne existed, people performed good-luck rituals before setting sail. But since animal sacrifice is generally frowned upon these days, a new tradition developed before a ship’s maiden voyage: smashing a bottle of Champagne against the hull.

The history of Solvang, California's little Danish village

Just north of Santa Barbara sits a curious California gem: Solvang, a small town constructed in the Danish Provincial style. This video tour of the village provides a fascinating history of how the town became a miniature Copenhagen and does so in a unique way: by trying to recreate vintage photographs of the town. It makes for an entertaining and educational tour.

Imagine thousands of alternate histories of the world

AlternateHistory.com has hosted fan-written "what if" timelines, discussions, and speculative fiction since 2000, making it the largest online gathering of alternate history enthusiasts, with over 10,000 active members and a wiki cataloging hundreds of user-created scenarios. Two highlights to pique your interest: what if the Vikings had settled North America? What would have had to happen for the storyline of George Orwell's "1984" to come true?

What one seventh-century European teen might have looked like

A 16-year-old girl believed to have traveled from Central Europe to England in the seventh century was buried with rare, expensive jewelry. Her body was found in Cambridge, England in 2012, and analysis revealed what her face likely looked like. See...

Take a virtual tour of the Royal Research Ship named after David Attenborough

Operated by the British Antarctic Survey, the RRS Sir David Attenborough and its onboard tools and laboratories have investigated the biogeochemical cycles of the Southern Ocean, the stability of Greenland's ice shelves, and the impact of climate change on marine ecosystems. One of the ship's autonomous underwater vehicles was named Boaty McBoatface based on the results of a naming poll from the Natural Environment Research Council.

See nine airplane models that transformed aviation

This visual guide jumps over the dawn of modern air travel and begins with the open-cockpit biplane flown by the first scheduled airline, the St. Petersburg-Tampa Airboat Line. (Some users may experience a paywall.)

Guide a ship to dock at the International Space Station

Dozens of ships dock at the ISS yearly, rotating astronaut crews and delivering supplies. This simulation lets you try docking a SpaceX Dragon 2 using the same interface and controls as NASA astronauts.

The art of 'undiscovering' phantom islands

Centuries of maps include islands and isles that appear to only exist on atlases. This article explores the discovery and "undiscovery" of such landscapes, which still persist despite modern technology. As recently as 2012, Google Maps showed an...

In 1915, workers recovered a submarine-like vessel from the Chicago River, prompting fears of German espionage

Cook’s ‘Travellers Handbooks’ were precursors to the travel guide

Long before Rick Steves or Lonely Planet, Thomas Cook’s “Travellers Handbooks” offered maps, recommendations, and tips for 19th-century tourists in unfamiliar locations.

Explore this hantavirus cruise ship outbreak case map from May 2026

Assembled from case information from state and health agencies, this detailed mapping includes the last known locations of each confirmed, deceased, and suspected case and their status.

Tove Jansson's illustrations for 'The Hobbit' rankled some of its diehard fans

The Nordic illustrator was asked to contribute illustrations for the 1960 Swedish translation of J.R.R. Tolkien's "The Hobbit." Some fans were critical, though, arguing that the images didn't accurately represent Tolkien's Middle-earth. One of their most convincing pieces of evidence was Jansson's portrayal of Gollum, which she turned into a massive beast. After seeing it, Tolkien realized he needed to specify that the character was "a small, slimy creature."

This real-time tracking of the hantavirus cruise ship outbreak in May 2026 offers a unique glimpse into the global reach of the outbreak and whether the virus sickened passengers and their communities around the world.

The Dracula character, now seen as the vampire archetype, was inspired by a seafood-induced nightmare its creator experienced.

Explore the archaeological treasures of Pompeii, the city buried under volcanic ash when Mount Vesuvius erupted in 79 CE.

Clever Hans was a 1900s horse that was believed to be able to solve math equations, tell time, and read and comprehend German, until a psychology student discovered how he got his answers.

Take a 3D tour of the Hajj, Islam's annual pilgrimage to Mecca, undertaken by more than 1.5 million Muslims each year.

Explore the history, structure, and species of Australia's Great Barrier Reef with this interactive journey narrated by Sir David Attenborough.

See a 3D reconstruction of Tenochtitlan, the Aztec capital that was home to an estimated population of 200,000 to 400,000.

Watch this video that uses Lego bricks to explain how venture capital works.

In 1945, Surrealist artist Salvador Dalí and legendary animator Walt Disney began collaborating on a short film that was not completed until 2003, years after both men had died.

Sears sold DIY house kits starting at $600 in its famous catalog from 1908 through the 1940s, resulting in roughly 10,000 'Sears and Roebuck houses' being built.

The Brothers Grimm were lawyers before they were storytellers, and became interested in fairy tales as they began investigating how rules and customs had been passed down through cultures.

Explore the known asteroids, comets, and spacecraft involved in asteroid studies within our solar system with 'Eyes on Asteroids,' a 3D visualization from NASA.

Browse a detailed visual analysis of over 200,000 similes—comparisons that often use 'like' or 'as'—from popular fiction to see how frequently writers the same idiomatic expressions.

Learn more about the history of fireworks, which dates back to an accidental invention during an alchemist's quest for information about immortality.

See the 25 of the best photos of auroras from around the world.

'Shogun,' a 1980s TV series, helped popularize sushi in the US by stimulating an American interest in Japanese culture.

Meet the 56 signers of the Declaration of Independence—most of whom didn't put pen to paper until August 2, 1776—and see their original signatures.

Waves off the coast of Nazaré, Portugal, can reach over 100 feet and are caused by the area's deep underwater canyon geography

Art theft is the third-largest source of criminal revenues worldwide, thanks in part to the subjective nature of valuing a work of art.

A century of Billboard issues documenting the evolution of popular music.

Some coin denominations have ridges etched on their sides, partly to prevent counterfeiting, in a practice called 'reeding.'

Alzheimer's can lead to brain shrinkage, with an average of around 2% of volume reduction per year

Explore chaos in this simulation of two double pendulums, where small differences in the release angles produce wildly different outcomes.